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Microsoft to Buy Anti-Virus Software Firm
thejuggler writes "Excite News is reporting that Microsoft is planning to buy Sybari Software Inc., which makes programs designed to protect business computer networks from viruses, worms and other threats. This is Microsoft's second purchase of an anti-virus company. The article states that Microsoft is thinking about charging for their anti-virus and anti-spyware software."
As we noted over at Ars, Sybari doesn't make an AV engine. Their main product allows customers to plug in AV engines developed by other companies, and in fact can support multiple engines at once.
Of course, MS does have their own engine now, which they bought back in 2003.
MS can use the tools, viirus signature/knowledge base, etc to much better protect its software from outside attacks.
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This is good for the industry as your average consumer and, more importantly, business purchase decision makers will have a reason to buy more software/hardware, create jobs, raise incomes, expand the economy,
Eh? Antitrust laws do not simply protect against monopolies/cartels, but instead protect against anything that intentionally restrains trade (as vague as that is). There are several solid pages on vertical integration/antitrust (one, two ). Isn't payola a clear case of vertical integration? If you can control the channels of production, it doesn't matter if you have lots of competitors who will sell at a lower price than you; the customer doesn't have access to their product.
Could someone explain why wingnut here only posted a link back to this thread?
The "it" pages on slashdot (as in "it.slashdot.org") use a pretty annoying color theme. By changing it to an unknown value, you can force the web page to use the (more reasonable) defaults.
There's always www.clamav.net
I can't find the link, but the irconic thing is that ClamAV, the free virus scanner, was once evaluated and found to update its database sometimes faster then both symantec and mcaffee.
Regards,
Steve
The team has been around for over a year, and is part of the Windows group. They will be offering some sort of subscription ($) based security service. I'm sure this acquisition and the acquisition of the anti-spyware technology are not unrelated.
The team was placed in the Windows group in order to improve communication and turn around time with the developers. Hopefully this will mean faster resolutions and hotfixes to security issues.
Also, there is apparently some client code that provides a "heartbeat" back to the Microsoft servers.
I hope none of this information is sensitive... if it was I assume they would have had me sign the NDA.
then by including its browser and mail client in their OS, and preventing by its maneuvers other products to have a chance (ie: being included by the OEM), microsoft forcibly extended its mono-culture to two other important vectors of virus and spywares...
combined with:
- the numerous security fails discovered in these product in a regular fashion.. some of them very stupid and dangerous: attachment that open by itself and execute, by using audio/x-wav mime type.
- bad default settings: hidden extensions (what have they done to prevent double extension scam in OE ?), netbios and co active by default on the internet connexion..etc..
microsoft created a ground very favorable to virus, spyware, worms: we could euphemistically that that they have some responsability here..MS attempt to make money with antivirus/antispyware not only shows their opportunism but also their prevalent cynism.
i guess that a antivirus and antispyware mono-culture is what we needed :/
BTW for those poor fellows still using OS oses ;) there is a great paper about network services minimization on windows 2000/XP (also available in french) a good way to close some present and future security holes, thanks to herve schauer consultants.